Leather Repairman Tim Willig Keeps Stuff Awesome

Tim Willig is awesome and he has the
business cards to prove it. The shoe and leather repairman doesn’t have
“cobbler” written anywhere on his aforementioned business cards. Rather,
the official title listed for the owner/operator of Awesome Time Shoe
and Leather Repair simply reads: “Awesome Guy.” And in a disposable
society, Willig’s ability to keep items wearable instead of trashable
does indeed make him just that.

Willig grew up in Winton Place and now
lives in Over-the-Rhine, but he’s been working out of the Casablanca
Vintage storefront in Northside since 2001. Before he knew any tricks of
the cobbler trade, he worked for Casablanca’s previous owner doing
mostly retail. But in 2004, the opportunity for an apprenticeship with a
second-generation cobbler presented itself.

The previous owner of Casablanca knew the
owner of a shoe repair business down the street, who was closing up
shop to move to Los Angeles. “His dad taught him since he was little,”
Willig says, “and they kind of thought, ‘Maybe Tim would wanna do that?’
So they said, ‘We’re thinking about doing this, would you wanna learn
how to do it?’ ”

And with his agreement, Casablanca gained
a shoe repair arm of the business. Shortly thereafter, Willig acquired a
dedicated spot in one corner of the vintage boutique (for the metal
behemoths of equipment required for his edification) and began a
yearlong training with the retiring cobbler before he left for the West
Coast. Several years later, he purchased the shoe repair business
outright from his former boss.

Willig’s description of his training is,
“You learn how to take it all apart and put it back together again.”
Though humble about the fact, Willig is not new to working with his
hands.

He repaired “little things” on banjos — an instrument he’s played
for more than a decade — and also taught friends to play. He insists
his work as a musician (he also plays the guitar) has nothing to do with
his work as a cobbler, but manual dexterity is a prerequisite of both
jobs.

His daily tasks at Awesome Time also involve a good deal of multi-tasking and ingenuity.

“Some things are cut and dry,” Willig
says. “You repair boots. I know it’s get the soles off, put a new one
on, stitch it up and put new heels on. You don’t really have to think
too much about it. There’s other things where it’s like, ‘OK, how do I
even start doing this?’ ”

One such project was a vintage doctor’s bag, given to Willig’s family doctor by his
parents when he went away to medical school. Willig replaced all but
the original hardware (hinges, handle, cardboard base and metal feet)
including about half of the leather on the front of the case.

He admits that some projects are
non-repairable, but mostly — and perhaps ironically — they’re newer
objects, often made from synthetic materials. (Think vinyl instead of
leather, plastic instead of wood.) For instance, he says, “I’ll get a
25-year-old shoe that’s been fixed three times already, and I’ll fix it
again and they can wear it perfectly fine. Newer stuff, you can still
fix. But the number of times it’s made to be fixed is much lower.”

But, Willig insists, “shoes are one of the few things that can actually be fixed these days,” compared to the disposability of mass-produced clothes.

And you’d probably never see the leather/shoe repairman wearing anything he bought at a mall — much less anything contemporary.The
kind of guy who can (and does) rock a three-piece suit with spectators
in the middle of summer, even Willig’s “work clothes” are legitimate
examples of vintage men’s work wear.But he’s been doing this before vintage became the “new black” it is today.

Around 12 years ago, when Willig started
working at Casablanca, he says he suddenly realized, “There were all
these clothes I could wear! They fit me and they looked good. I knew
this was something I can do and make it my own.”

And make it his own Willig has. After a
“landlord issue,” which required Willig move and store his substantial
equipment for three months outside of Casablanca, he changed the name of
his company from “Northside Shoe Repair” to “Awesome Time Shoe and
Leather Repair”— in case he ever had to move again.

He’s been back in his old spot in the
vintage boutique for about a year now but his focus remains the same:
restoring beloved objects for their owners.

“We definitely live in a disposable
society,” Willig says, “so it’s satisfying to help people be able to
keep things that they love.”

AWESOME TIME SHOE AND LEATHER REPAIR is located at 3944 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, 513-541-6999, awesome-time.com.